


This is the Way That We Love (Like It's Forever)

by nianeyna



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-06
Updated: 2010-10-06
Packaged: 2017-10-21 00:17:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nianeyna/pseuds/nianeyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was about then that Sam remembered something <i>really</i> important. “Where’s Dean?”</p><p>“Uh,” Chuck said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is the Way That We Love (Like It's Forever)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Secret Angels IV fic exchange [at deancastiel](http://deancastiel.livejournal.com/2374182.html), for the prompt: _After Season 5 AU, after Sam/Lucifer falls into the void with Adam/Michael they both get thrown back out almost immediately and see Castiel fix Dean and resurrect Bobby. God decides to finally make an appearance, he absolves Sam and Adam and tells them to actually get some rest/see the world cause they deserve it. He then rewards Castiel by giving him Zachariah's position and then sends him back to Heaven, but not before he assigns Dean to help him._
> 
> I veered off the prompt a bit, but I think I stayed true to the spirit of it. This goes au about 30 seconds before the end of Swan Song (I THINK YOU ALL KNOW WHAT I MEAN). A billion thanks to brainmissing for the lightning-fast beta and moral support. *g*

NOW:

Sam had really been expecting Hell to be a bit more… hellish.

He’d been expecting it to be dark, and red, and full of pain and _Lucifer_. He _hadn’t_ been expecting to jump into the pit and end up... in a motel room. A perfectly normal motel room, that could easily have switched places with any of the thousands of motel rooms Sam had stayed in during his lifetime. The carpet was a rather horrifying orange-brown color, true, and the sheets were, well, less than pristine. But the lights were on, and the floral curtains were open to daylight and a busy arterial with a street sign reading “ AURORA”, and Sam was completely alone in his head. He turned slowly, expecting everything to change at any second, but the faded green wallpaper stayed firmly in place, and all he found in the room was Adam, looking wide-eyed and confused and nothing at all like Michael.

“Is this what was supposed to happen?” Adam whispered, as if he was afraid someone was going to hear.

Sam could only shrug helplessly, and then they both turned toward the door because the lock had beeped, and someone was opening it.

It was Chuck.

“Uh,” he said, scratching his neck and looking at Adam, presumably thinking he was the safer of the two. “Hi, guys.”

Sam stared at him. “Chuck,” he said slowly and very, very clearly. “What the hell - uh, I mean, _what_ is going on?”

Chuck brightened. “Well, funny thing - turns out actual, physical bodies aren’t really supposed to end up in Hell. It messes with the metaphysics of the... something or other... anyway, the upshot is, the universe spent about three months trying to figure out what the hell - uh, sorry - to do with you two, and it ended up spitting you back out, well, here. I got a vision of you arriving, so I came to explain things. You’re welcome, by the way. Do you know how many Auroras there are in the United States? I had to make extensive use of Google Maps street view. It took me almost the whole three months just to find the right place.”

“Um,” Adam said, dazedly. “Thank you?”

“So, wait,” Sam said. There _had_ to be some kind of catch here. “What about Michael and Lucifer?”

“Oh, they’re not corporeal, obviously, since they need vessels” Chuck said earnestly. “Still in Hell, don’t worry. Hopefully working out some of that sibling rivalry.”

“Are you serious?” Sam stared at Chuck. This did not happen to Winchesters. “We’re out, no strings, no deals, no more apocalypse?”

Chuck shrugged. “Well, yeah. You’re free, do whatever you want. Though, I vote keep hunting, I’ve still got to make a living, you know.”

“ _You’re still publishing those?!_ ”

Chuck shrank back, groping for the doorknob. “No?” he lied.

It was about then that Sam remembered something _really_ important. “Where’s Dean?”

“Uh,” Chuck said.

 

THEN:

“Dean,” Lisa said into the 2 AM darkness. “I like you. But I have a job and a twelve year old. I need to sleep occasionally.”

“Right,” Dean said awkwardly. “I, uh. Sorry. About the...”

“Screaming nightmares? Or the incredible, but kind of exhausting, sex?”

“Um.”

“Yeah. I don’t want to come across as a heartless bitch here -”

“No, of course not!”

“- and if I thought that I was really helping you - that we were really helping you, I would deal. You know that, right?”

Well, maybe. Lisa was good people, but even saints had limits, and Dean was one of them. “Yeah,” Dean said.

“We’re not, though. Helping you. It’s been over a month, and - you’re not happy here, Dean. I know you probably thought you needed a break, and I don’t know all the details, but I’m pretty sure you deserve one. I just don’t think it turned out to be the best idea. You’re obviously bored out of your skull, and at first Ben was thrilled with all the attention, but frankly I think he’s feeling a little haunted at this point - oh, um, poor word choice, sorry. I just, I don’t think you’re made to settle down. I’m sorry.”

“No. I - I think you’re probably right. This was all Sam’s idea, anyway.” Dean’s voice absolutely didn’t waver on his brother’s name. “He just wanted me to be happy.”

“Then you should do something that makes you happy, Dean,” Lisa said, gently, finally turning to face him in a rustle of bedclothes. Dean turned his head to look into her shadowed face.

“I don’t know what that is,” he whispered.

“Maybe you should find out.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe Cas can help.”

Dean stiffened. He had never mentioned Cas to Lisa, he was sure of that. She laughed, not unkindly.

“Dean. You’ve called me ‘Cas’ in bed five times.”

“...I’ll leave tomorrow.”

“Don’t forget to write,” Lisa smirked.

* * *

It was a commentary on his life, Dean thought depressively, that the sudden appearance of a creepy trenchcoated dude in the passenger seat of his car - _while he was driving_ \- didn’t faze him in the slightest.

“Hey, Cas.”

“Hello, Dean.”

They drove in silence for about a mile and a half.

“So,” Dean said finally. “You got something to say or are you just here to stare at me?” He glanced over at Cas, who was, indeed, staring at him. It wasn’t the, “I’m staring at you because I have nothing else to do and I have no concept of boundaries,” stare. It wasn’t the, “your human customs confuse me,” stare, either. No, it was the, “I’m about to ask you to do something and I’m not sure how you’ll take it,” stare.

“Crap,” Dean muttered, and pulled over onto the shoulder in a crunch of gravel, turning off the engine. “What?” he demanded into the sudden quiet.

Castiel hesitated, which was totally uncharacteristic. “You... broke up with Lisa, didn’t you?”

Dean shrugged. “I don’t think there was really all that much to break up, honest... wait. How did you know that?” A terrible suspicion struck him. “Have you been spying on me from Heaven?”

Castiel looked totally unrepentant.

“Ugh, why am I even surprised,” Dean muttered.

All he got for that was a blank stare, but he thought he saw an amused smirk lurking behind Cas’s eyes. Irrationally, this made a bloom of warmth curl in his chest, but Dean ignored it resolutely. Holding on to his annoyance proved impossible, though. “I don’t even want to know,” Dean huffed. “Obviously teaching you about personal space is a lost cause. Anyway yeah, Lisa and me broke up. Too crazy for her, I guess.”

“You’re not crazy, Dean,” Cas frowned.

“Too crazy for her,” Dean repeated peacably.

“I’m... glad,” Cas said, but it was so quiet that after a moment Dean decided he’d imagined it.

He shook his head, sharply. “Okay, so, out with it Cas. What brings you to the mortal plane?”

“I want to offer you a job.”

Huh. Interesting phrasing. Not, “I have a job for you,” but “I’m _offering_ you a job.” Cas might actually be learning to be polite. Baby steps, Dean thought, amused.

“I already have a job,” he pointed out.

“You haven’t done any hunting since the apocalypse.”

“I’m on vacation!”

Castiel leaned back in his seat and eyed him speculatively. “You’re bored, but you don’t want to go back to hunting. Not by yourself,” he observed. “I’m offering you something to do that will be interesting, I hope, but unlikely to get you killed or to... bring up memories.” Neither of them said “Sam,” but he might as well have been sitting in the car with them.

Okay, fine. Dean was curious, anyway. “The King of Heaven, offering me a job? This oughta be good.”

“I am not the _King_ of Heaven, Dean,” Cas scowled.

“Yeah, whatever,” Dean said, amused. “Sheriff. Head bitch in charge.” He smirked, and Cas widened his eyes at him in studied incomprehension, and then visibly let it go and sighed, “It’s your friend, Ash.”

Well, that was unexpected. “Ash?”

“He is causing... a disturbance, in the human realms.”

What the - and then it clicked. Dean grinned. “Not keeping his little heaven-hopping trick to himself? C’mon, what’s so bad about that? Heaven was kinda boring anyway. They’re dead, can’t you let them have a bit of a party?”

“I’d _like_ to,” Cas said exasperatedly, “but they are considerably hindering my efforts to reorganize Heaven. It’s difficult to convince my brothers that they should be more well-disposed towards humans when the humans they have the most contact with insist on playing juvenile tricks on them at every opportunity.”

Dean blinked, processed that, and then started to laugh helplessly. “Are you serious?” he wheezed. “All of the angels _combined_ can’t deal with a few _dead humans_ playing practical jokes? Oh, man. After all the trouble we had with you guys...” Okay, so it wasn’t _that_ funny, but Dean thought he was owed a good laugh. Especially when Cas was sitting there all straight backed and disapproving, but with a tiny crinkle at the corners of his eyes that would never have been there when Dean first met him - as if he was saying, “all right, so it is a _little_ funny.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean said finally. “So what exactly is it you want me to do, here?”

Cas huffed. “They will not listen to any of the angelic messengers I send. Barachiel came back with his wings tied in a knot - it took three of us to disentangle him - and Jophiel is still missing. We think she may be in prehistoric Australia.”

Dean blinked, sidetracked. “Wait. You guys have actual wings?” He’d always thought that was more of a metaphor.

“They often manifest as wings,” Cas said, glaring as if to say, don’t change the subject.

Dean held up his hands. “Fine, so - basically you want me to go tell Ash to knock it off? I don’t know if he’ll listen to me, dude.”

“I was thinking of something a bit more long term,” Cas admitted.

Huh?

“I understand that it may take some time to come to an agreement with Ash and his... friends,” Cas explained, “but even after that... now that the humans have the knowledge to move between each others’ heavens, it would be extremely difficult to keep them from doing so, and in any case you were right. I believe it would be wrong even to attempt to stop them.”

There was that stupid warm feeling in his chest, again.

Cas flexed his hands absently. “Now that they are no longer confined, however, it’s likely that there will continue to be conflicts between us. This situation is proof that my brothers have no idea what they’re doing when it comes to dealing with humanity.”

“I think we had proof of that already, Cas,” Dean said, raising an eybrow.

“ _More_ proof, then. In short, we need a liason.”

“And you think _I’m_ a good choice? You do realize my negotiating strategy usually consists of shooting things in the face, right?”

Cas rolled his eyes. “I’m aware, yes. But we need someone who both understands humanity and commands some measure of respect among the angels. Do you have any other suggestions?”

Yeah, okay. Except - “I thought most of the angels hated me.”

“Some do,” Cas said serenely, “but even those understand that you are the righteous man. However, you did end the apocalypse, and despite the impressions you may have formed most of my brothers appreciate that. We’re not _all_ dicks, you know.”

Dean laughed, surprised. “Yeah,” he said, looking at Cas. “I know.” Fine, so maybe he was actually doing this. It’s not like he had anything better to do. “Exactly how long term are we talking, here?”

Cas looked down - _weird_ , again - and said, “I was thinking permanently.”

Dean balked.

Castiel’s eyes flashed up to his. “I don’t propose to confine you, Dean. You can return to Earth at any time, but what is there to return to?” Cas leaned across the car, into Dean’s personal space, and that was the Castiel Dean knew. He could feel the crackle of power along his skin, that _alien_ feeling that had diminished as Cas became more human, lost his mojo, only now it was back even stronger, Dean thought, than it had been before. Castiel’s eyes were very blue. “What’s keeping you here, Dean?” he asked, and Dean could feel his voice in his spine. Their faces were so close their noses were almost touching - and Dean remembered.

> It was dark in Bobby’s junkyard, but it was better than inside, where Sam’s screams for help echoed in his ears like the cries of the damned - and Dean would know. Here the only sound was the soft pinging of rain hitting metal, and the rustle of a chill spring wind. He leaned against the side of the Impala, tipping his head up. The car was wet, and the back of his shirt soaked up the raindrops, clinging to him damply. Rain fell into his eyes.
> 
> Praying was pointless, Dean thought, feeling his eyes sting. _Just the rain_. No one was listening.
> 
> “Dean.”
> 
> “Seriously Cas, go away.” Goddamn angel.
> 
>  _“No.”_
> 
> Dean looked at him, startled, because Cas actually sounded _upset._ Not angry, or impatient, but distressed. At first Dean couldn’t figure out why, and then he saw the way Cas was looking at him, like he was worried. Worried about Dean, and that was - Dean didn’t know what to do with that.
> 
> “I’m fine,” Dean said, but it didn’t come out as steadily as he’d intended.
> 
> Cas completely ignored him, which was maybe lucky. Even Dean recognized that that had been a pretty ridiculous thing to say. “You’re not empty,” Castiel said, out of nowhere, and it hit Dean like a blow to the chest, the way Castiel was so sure and so wrong.
> 
> Dean laughed, bitter. “Oh, but I am,” he argued. “Famine was right, I’ve got nothing left. Just look at me. Look at _us_. What are we _doing_? We can’t stop this, there’s no way, it’s completely insa-”
> 
> Dean stopped, because Castiel had taken two quick steps and backed him against the car, fists knotted in Dean’s lapels, the length of his body pressed against Dean’s, hemming him in - like if he could just get close enough he could convince Dean through some sort of osmosis. All Dean could see now was Castiel’s face, mouth set in a stubborn line, eyes wide and earnest.
> 
> “You’re not empty,” Castiel insisted. “You care too much to be empty.”
> 
> All the air left Dean in a rush, because that was it, wasn’t it? That was his entire fucking problem, right there. They’d write it on his gravestone, if he had one. Dean Winchester: He Cared Too Much. So fine, maybe Castiel was right. Maybe Dean wasn’t empty, but God, sometimes he wanted to be.
> 
> “I can’t,” Dean said, voice cracking, “I can’t, Cas, I can’t do it anymore,” and Cas kissed him, just like that, simple and obvious, like it was always going to be this way. And it was, Dean realized, surprised because it wasn’t surprising at all. Kissing Castiel felt right when almost nothing else was, and Dean felt something knotted tight inside him relax incrementally as he slid an arm around Cas’ shoulders and drew him, somehow, even closer.
> 
> Eventually Cas pulled back and put his hands on either side of Dean’s face, forcing him to look at him. A thumb stroked over his cheekbone, warm. “We _can_ do this,” Castiel told him, still so fucking sure.
> 
> “Okay,” Dean said, and right at that moment he almost believed it. “Okay.”
> 
> * * *
> 
> The next time Dean heard from Cas, he was in Heaven, and Cas was offering condolences on his recent death. When he came back to life (again) he had to tell Cas that God didn’t give a shit about them, and if he’d thought he was hopeless before he’d been so, so wrong. Watching Cas give up fucking _broke_ him, and after that it just seemed pointless to try and continue - whatever that was, in the junkyard. But now

“Nothing,” Dean whispered roughly, and, “nothing’s keeping me here,” as his hand came up to grip Cas’s hair, and Cas grasped his shoulder just off center of the mark he’d left there years ago, and the kiss was just as perfect as Dean remembered.

* * *

“That went well,” Cas said some time later, in the Garden. His hair was disheveled, and one of his wings - Dean could _totally_ see them now, and they were _awesome_ \- was slightly crooked.

Dean stared at him in disbelief. “I almost started a war!”

Castiel was forced to acknowledge this point. “You didn’t though, in the end,” he pointed out stubbornly.

Dean laughed, warm and at peace with the world. “Admit it, Cas. You knew I’d be a disaster. This whole thing was _totally_ just a booty call,” he teased.

“You did broker an agreement with the humans,” Cas tried, but he was half smiling, and Dean didn’t even try to suppress the feeling it gave him.

“Uh huh,” he grinned. “Come here.” And Cas did.

Dean ran a hand over Cas’s wing, trying to straighten some of the feathers. Cas closed his eyes, and breathed in sharply.

Huh. “Really?” Experimentally, Dean carded his fingers through the small feathers at the edge of Cas’s wing, ruffling them a bit. Jesus, they were soft. Cas shuddered, closing his eyes and reaching to grab on to Dean’s shoulders like he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to hold himself up.

“Cool,” Dean breathed, pleased, which was when Castiel turned his head enough to scrape his teeth behind Dean’s ear, and Dean kinda forgot about gloating.

“Dean,” Castiel growled, “I want you to take your clothes off,” and Heaven was _really cool_ because Dean just had to think about it, and he was naked -

 

NOW:

“Okay, stop!” Sam said hastily. “We get it, there’s no need to, uh, go into detail.”

Chuck gave them an apologetic look. “Sorry. I think I may have been spending too much time with Becky.” At which point he _actually looked over his shoulder_ , like she could somehow hear him and was about to descend to ask what exactly you meant by that, Chuck. Sam was actually kind of impressed at how whipped he was, but right now he had more pressing concerns than Chuck’s terrifying girlfriend.

“So, Dean’s in Heaven, but he’s not dead,” Sam clarified.

“Yup.”

“Does he know we’re back?”

“I’m not sure,” Chuck said thoughtfully. “Castiel’s pretty much omniscient at this point, so - probably. You might want to give Cas a summon and give him the good news, just in case.”

Sam hesitated. “And Dean can visit us?” He thought he’d gotten that from Chuck’s narrative, but he had to be sure.

Chuck made a face. “Oh, yeah. He dropped in on me, actually. Scared the crap out me, he wanted me to stop writing the Supernatural books.”

Sam glared at him. “So why _didn’t you_?”

Chuck’s eyes widened, and he started to inch towards the door again. “You don’t understand! I have a girlfriend to support!”

Sam took a step towards him.

“The Impala’s at Bobby’s here’s your fake credit cards,” Chuck said hurriedly, throwing a wallet at them. “Bye!” The door slammed shut behind him.

Sam looked at the door for a second, and then looked at Adam, who fidgeted for a moment, and cleared his throat. “So um,” he said hesitantly, “do you think there are more... ghouls, and stuff, out there?”

“Almost definitely.” Sam thought he thought he knew where this was going, but, “Why?”

“Sam,” Adam said, slowly, “will you teach me how to shoot a gun?”

END


End file.
